Pair: Second Lieutenant N. M. Collins, Royal Fusiliers, who died of wounds at de Panne during the retreat to Dunkirk, 31 May 1940

1939-45 Star; War Medal 1939-45, both contemporarily engraved ‘2/Lt. N. M. Collins. Royal Fusiliers’, with named Army Council enclosure, extremely fine (2) £100-140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties.

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Neville Murray Collins was born in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, on 16 September 1918, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel N. Collins, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and was educated at Radley College and Balliol College, Oxford. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers on 27 November 1939, and served during the Second World War with the 2nd Battalion. He died of wounds received in action on 31 May - 1 June 1940 during the retreat to Dunkirk.

In his book The Battle of Britain, James Holland writes:
‘The Eastern sector of the defence perimeter was suffering badly under the onslaught of the German 18th Army. The 2nd Battalion began to suffer heavily under this sustained attack. Their depleted number armed with rifles, a few Bren guns, and way too little ammunition could only hold on for so long against massively superior fire and man power. Their remaining carriers had now been pressed into service as ambulances to carry the wounded back to the Regimental Aid Post. Casualties were now critical so Major Lotinga ordered them to fall back another 800 yards. Another Second Lieutenant and several N.C.O.s were killed in the process... Out of 800 men who had marched into Belgium two weeks earlier a little under 150 remained. Gathering their remaining carriers they collected themselves together and under cover of dusk headed on down the road to de Panne, now largely empty but pitted with shell craters and lined with houses and buildings mostly reduced to rubble.’

Collins was aged 21 at the time of his death. He is buried in de Panne Communal Cemetery, Belgium.

De Panne village was the site of the final General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940, and there was a Casualty Clearing Station on the beach, which was also an embarkation beach for the evacuation. From 27 May to 1 June 1940, the Germans strove to prevent the embarkation of the troops by incessant bombing, machine-gunning and shelling. The first German troops reached the village at 2:00 p.m. on 31 May, and after heavy fighting, the commune was completely occupied by the enemy by 9:00 a.m. on 1 June. Given the date of Collins’ death, and the location of his grave, it is likely that he was involved in the final rearguard action at de Panne.

Sold with the recipient’s Officers Training Corps Certificate; and a copy of the Royal Fusiliers Chronicle, January 1942, and newspaper cuttings from The Times and The Radleian, which lists the recipient’s death.